Certified Fresh: Bas – The Dreams Of Dreamville’s First At Bat

HHW: It’s almost time to release your Interscope debut, Last Winter. Is this project as personal as the Quarter Water Raised Me series?

Bas:Last Winter is more of a time piece. A lot of my work is current. I think it really exemplifies this past year, because the concept was developed between me and a longtime collaborator of mine named Cedric Brown. He produced about four or five records on it. He’s one of Cole’s friends.We were kind of living parallel lives, just doing dumb street sh*t. We were friends with Cole, and then Cole brought us out on the road. We linked up on the road and started working together. We cliqued instantly because we have kind of similar personalities.

The first tour we came back from like early 2012, and this was kind of when Dreamville was loosely forming. Cedric lived in Alabama at the time, and we all got back to NY. I was like, ‘Man just stay in NY. You can stay in my parents crib.’

We’d be working in my basement and it’s just brick a$$ cold, and we’re both broke. When we would make a hot record, we had this rallying call. We would look at each other and be like “last winter.” This is our last winter. We not going to be living like this no more, we’re gonna put in this work, and we’re going to elevate our situation. That was always the concept, but as the year progressed, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense.